America strikes back! As usual representing the biggest contingent in the game -although this time they are the relative majority, and not the absolute one- US players didn't have a particularly good record in this game, at least when it comes to stage winning, with just three victories out of 17 stages, and contenders from Australia and Norway (!) doing better. But then Phil Trostel came and took charge of re-establishing equality as he scored America's fourth stage success in the Fantasy Vuelta 2004.

In a stage marked by quite low scores, 42 points were enough for "vicious cycle" to take both line honors and twenty-five bonus points on the GC. Trostel didn't have any of the stage top 3 scorers, and he lacked the mighty Kelme too. But Mallorca's own Joan Horrach got into the right breakaway (although none of the escapees did counter Pascual Rodríguez's winning move) and earned him sixteen points. And other members of his wild bunch of good riders, as well as Heras' trade team, did the rest, hence Mr.Trostel, not much in the spotlight before in the game, could finally have his well-earned day in the sun.

It was a successful day for "America" ... in its broader meaning. In fact a player from the American continent took also the runner-up spot: Colombia's Mario Ballesteros made the most out of the excellent performances by fellow countrymen Iván Parra and Félix Cárdenas and earned 40 stage points, 27 of which from the two "escarabajos" and the rest scored by Valverde and Heras. A pity (for him) that he didn't pick Hernan Buenahora too, as with the third Colombian stage scorer in his team Ballesteros would have clinched stage victory.

The battle for the remaining top 3 spot ended in small bunch sprint with three protagonists, all of them getting 35 points. But curiously their respective virtual teams had three different top scores, such that it wasn't difficult for us to apply the tie-breaking rules: Richard Purkiss (with Parra awarding him 20 points) snatched third, followed by Holland's Bas van Gelderen ("Robasco" had 16-point getter Horrach as main scorer of the day), with American Xavier Cintron (top scorer: Hernán Buenahora. 13 points).

Just like in the real Tour of Spain, Thursday was theday for "stage hunters" and non-GC contenders to go for some glory. And this trend continued into the rest of the stage top 10, which featured (mostly) players seldom able to make the headlines in previous legs, from Mima Bennett to Martin Connor to Stephen Myers. The Australian was the only FG contender with stage winner -on the road- Javier Pascual Rodríguez in his virtual team. But with just two points from the rest of its riders, courtesy of Paco Mancebo, "Sunshine" couldn't place higher than ninth, although not far from the top 3 spots.

Alonso Tejeda was the exception to the rule: "Summertime Blues" snatched tenth in stage 15, was even runner-up the next day, and got back to spot number tem in Thursday's leg, Points by Heras (18) and Kelme (14) proved enough for Tejeda to be the third American in the daily top 10. And certainly make some gains in the overall too. Another previous stage runner-up, yesterday's second place getter Mattias Markstrom, put in one more remarkable performance, thans to his "regular" point-providers Heras, Cárdenas and Liberty Seguros, but the Swede failed to enter the top 10 places by just one point.

He had the honour of outsprinting Georg Reidarsen (thanks to the "earlier poster" tie-breaking rule) anyway, with Holland's Jim Terpstra (31 points from the Spanish-speaking mix of Roberto Heras and Hernan Buenahora for him) in between. A true protagonist in some of the past Fantasy Games, Hans Jacob Hofgaard is not repeating his past performances in this Vuelta, but he managed a top 15 finish in Thursday's stage at least, and edged out a seven-strong group (which contained three Dutch players and as many Americans, GC contenders Pluijmen and Roguski included, as well as France's Aurélien Delaurent) by one point.

Janna Trevisanut was the only player getting one stage point (Stefano Garzelli was the one to blame for that). The "Site Goddess" is really living up to her virtual team name in this Fantasy vuelta edition, but in Thursday's stage she did better than more than sixty players, whose score of the day was zero.